A Knitting Affair

Nuff said.

**thanks Sandi, I didn’t realize that this wasn’t published!!**

Well it is Thursday and I haven’t updated for almost a week. I had posted about the first day of the Mystery Wedding and then nothing afterwards. It was busy, great but also tiring. I almost need a vacation from the vacation! We arrived in Jasper on Friday night as I had mentioned earlier. And, as you can see, our family really is close and loves each other a lot.

The rooms were great. Some were cabins others were houses with multiple rooms. My mom stayed in the house where the Queen stayed! Saturday was the wedding, Emily and Padraig were already married, it was more of a celebration ceremony. We had thought that we would all go back to our rooms and relax, how wrong I was. The family (my aunts and a few cousins) stayed in the bar until 6 pm. Yes, 4 hours of merry drinking with the whole dinner to follow. I left the dinner at 11 pm and some were still going very hard at the partying. Sunday most of the guests left and the family stuck around. We had a great fire out by one of the little lakes on the property – roasting marshmallows, making smores and drinking bailey’s and hot chocolate. Monday was the ride home and I was exhausted.

On the knitting front, I had started the Mystery Drops Sweater on Friday, adapting this Drops pattern to be knit from the neck down. While I didn’t finish it by Monday, I only had 1.5 sleeves left to do. I finished it last night. It is now blocking. The yarn is Rowanspun Chunky in Fern. The only thing about this yarn is that it takes FOREVER to dry.

Then of course there is the need for the next project. I picked Bloom from Rowan 36. Part of my Rowan project and am doing some stashbusting at the same time by using Rowan Felted Tweed DK in Crush. That is TWO projects on a month that I am using stash yarn. I feel rather proud of myself in a weird way.

Oh Karen. How I love you. Because you are so wonderful to include me, and I so rarely join, I am answering your call for the meme: six quirky yet boring and/or unspectacular details about myself…

1) I am allergic to sulpher based drugs. Nothing like taking the cheap generic first discovered antibiotics to figure this out. Hives. Itches. And not being able to eat anything with sulpha in it along with red wine, for years. Now I can. But it took getting pregnant to change my body.

2) I am a hopeless romantic but try to deny it in all aspects of my life.

3) I would love to go back to school. Learning is where its all at. Hellooooo sugar daddy, lottery anything!! To be able to go back and get the degree I really want would be grossly expensive (at least for my budget) so I will probably take a few classes as money allows, perhaps a certificate? who knows.

4) I am seriously addicted to diet pepsi. Not diet coke. I can’t stand the taste of diet cock err coke (I had to keep that in because that is what my fingers initially typed). It has a more peppery taste or something. I can’t quite pinpoint it.

5) When I knit from my stash, I have mild (sometimes not so mild) panic attacks. I can give yarn away. But I have a hard time using it myself. I am working on using it though as not buying will help me pay for some classes (see #3) as I can take the classes and pay monthly (I love schools that are logical like that).

6) I am rude and often crude, but it is a total sham (mostly). If you can’t handle it then you probably wouldn’t be able to be my friend. If you can deal with it then I fully embrace you as a person (figuratively speaking) if you can’t then it means that my lifestyle and life in general may not be something that you will want to be around.

So, kinda useless things. Karen didn’t state that I had to be brilliant in what I wrote about.

In other news, I was up at 4:45am on a freaking Saturday when I didn’t have the kidlet. I had a bad sleep last night too. In my head I came up with two sweater pattern ideas, rearranged the living room and cameron’s bedroom along with figuring out what I would like to do with his room in the next year or so to set it up more “big boy” for school and homework. So I rolled out of bed at 5am, went to Tim’s for a coffee (there was a line up at that hour too!) and then came home and organized the knitting room in the basement. I did go back to bed and slept again for about 1.5 hours. Not enough, but something.

The boy and I also made a quick run to Gina Browns to get some buttons for the Drops sweater. I didn’t make button holes so the buttons I got are wooden and can slip through the holes of the panel pattern. Pictures tomorrow probably.

So at 8 am I arrived at the Westin Hotel in Calgary to await our departure. Most of the family was there and we ended up on the road by 9:15am. Not to shabby for organizing a bus full of people. Off we went driving west towards the mountains, past Canmore and Banff finally turning off towards the Icefields and Jasper. So we knew the final destination was somewhere up here. Of course, we spotted wildlife – a young grizzly and a bunch of elk. And, there was wildlife on the bus.

Arriving at the hotel and settling in, it was time to head off to the bbq. Its late and I finally left with a bottle of wine in hand. I will post more with pictures but right now I want to curl up and relax. Even though I didn’t do much of anything today, its very tiring!

The weekend is here, Thanksgiving long weekend to be exact. For starters, Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Yesterday I did an overhaul on the house and cleaned and did some organizing in the Kitchen, Living Room and Bathroom along with laundry, getting rid of old clothes and rearranging closet space. For dinner, Cameron and I went to David’s where we had the best lamb he has made yet. It was amazing. I love a man who cooks like that. It is gourmet all the way.

Friday Cameron and Whitley were doing some poses in the backyard. Whitley had a fresh haircut and the boy was extremely happy. They are so cute together. The only thing about Whitley being cut like this is that she tends to get cold at night and has gotten into a bit of a habit of sleeping under the covers at times!

I am also working on the blanket. Deadlines are fast approaching and with work being insane the knitting time isn’t as much as I wish it would be. But I am making progress. I think I have 11 squares so far. And today we are heading to see the horses and enjoy a turkey dinner and camp fire at a friends place. It is about a 1.5 – 2 hour drive south of me. With David driving I am hoping to get some knitting done.

Well I have a goal to finish a project a month. It can be anything – socks, sweaters, mittens – whatever. My goal for September was to finish my Lady February sweater. I cast off the final stitches on September 30 at about 8 pm! I wasn’t able to get any pictures though until Karen took some at snubs.

check out the buttons!

Yarn: Socks that Rock Heavyweight in Spinel

I only used 2.5 skeins of the 4 skeins that I purchased. I stopped knitting the lace at 19 inches and then did 1.5 for the garter rib. It grew about 2 inches in length and it is perfect now. The buttons are crystal one’s that I got from this great bead store a block away from work!

I can see knitting this sweater again at some point. You know, after I finish all my other projects *snort*

I have also started a “health” blog where I am documenting my quest for health – mental, physical and emotional. Mostly, because I want a dedicated place to post what I am doing. I read in Chapters a quote – Life is not about finding yourself, its about creating yourself – and that has become my new mantra!